Familiarity between mates improves few aspects of reproductive performance in house sparrows

Margret I. Hatch; David F. Westneat

doi:10.1163/156853908783402867

Familiarity between mates improves few aspects of reproductive performance in house sparrows

Margret I. Hatch
, David F. Westneat

Biology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

17 Scopus citations

Abstract

Many hypotheses have been proposed to account for the increased reproductive success with age documented in most birds. One, the mate familiarity hypothesis, suggests that older individuals are likely to have partners with whom they have bred before, which may enhance reproductive success. We found that pairs of house sparrows that bred together previously fledged more young than pairs that were newly formed. This was primarily due to newly-formed pairs with at least one yearling having fewer nesting attempts than continuing pairs. We also examined the possibility that continuing pairs were better coordinated in parental duties, but found no evidence for this in terms of amount of overlap at the nestbox or amount of time nestlings were unattended. Our results suggest the higher success of continuing pairs may be a matter of female age and quality and not due to benefits accrued by coordination with their mate.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	365-376
Number of pages	12
Journal	Behaviour
Volume	145
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1163/156853908783402867
State	Published - Mar 1 2008

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Funding provided to MIH by NSF grant IBN-0073239, The Graduate School of the University of Kentucky, The Ribble Fund of the Department of Biology and Sigma-Xi Grants-in-Aid of Research. Funding provided to DFW by NSF grant IBN-9816989 and the University of Kentucky. We thank the UK Agricultural Experiment Station and the staff at Maine Chance Farm for permission to do this study. We greatly appreciate the assistance in the field provided by I. Stewart, T. Kinnard, L. Abdulkadir, K. Chipko, R. Edenfield, J. Gipson, E. Halpin, D. Landrum, E. Orozco, R. Petralia, H. Schaefer and J. Weiskittle. We also thank R.J. Smith and three anonymous reviewers for comments which helped improve the manuscript.

Funding

Funding provided to MIH by NSF grant IBN-0073239, The Graduate School of the University of Kentucky, The Ribble Fund of the Department of Biology and Sigma-Xi Grants-in-Aid of Research. Funding provided to DFW by NSF grant IBN-9816989 and the University of Kentucky. We thank the UK Agricultural Experiment Station and the staff at Maine Chance Farm for permission to do this study. We greatly appreciate the assistance in the field provided by I. Stewart, T. Kinnard, L. Abdulkadir, K. Chipko, R. Edenfield, J. Gipson, E. Halpin, D. Landrum, E. Orozco, R. Petralia, H. Schaefer and J. Weiskittle. We also thank R.J. Smith and three anonymous reviewers for comments which helped improve the manuscript.

Funders	Funder number
National Science Foundation (NSF)	IBN-0073239
University of Kentucky	IBN-9816989

Keywords

Pair-bond
Parental behavior
Reproductive success

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Animal Science and Zoology
Behavioral Neuroscience

Access to Document

10.1163/156853908783402867

Cite this

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title = "Familiarity between mates improves few aspects of reproductive performance in house sparrows",

abstract = "Many hypotheses have been proposed to account for the increased reproductive success with age documented in most birds. One, the mate familiarity hypothesis, suggests that older individuals are likely to have partners with whom they have bred before, which may enhance reproductive success. We found that pairs of house sparrows that bred together previously fledged more young than pairs that were newly formed. This was primarily due to newly-formed pairs with at least one yearling having fewer nesting attempts than continuing pairs. We also examined the possibility that continuing pairs were better coordinated in parental duties, but found no evidence for this in terms of amount of overlap at the nestbox or amount of time nestlings were unattended. Our results suggest the higher success of continuing pairs may be a matter of female age and quality and not due to benefits accrued by coordination with their mate.",

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note = "Funding Information: Funding provided to MIH by NSF grant IBN-0073239, The Graduate School of the University of Kentucky, The Ribble Fund of the Department of Biology and Sigma-Xi Grants-in-Aid of Research. Funding provided to DFW by NSF grant IBN-9816989 and the University of Kentucky. We thank the UK Agricultural Experiment Station and the staff at Maine Chance Farm for permission to do this study. We greatly appreciate the assistance in the field provided by I. Stewart, T. Kinnard, L. Abdulkadir, K. Chipko, R. Edenfield, J. Gipson, E. Halpin, D. Landrum, E. Orozco, R. Petralia, H. Schaefer and J. Weiskittle. We also thank R.J. Smith and three anonymous reviewers for comments which helped improve the manuscript.",

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N2 - Many hypotheses have been proposed to account for the increased reproductive success with age documented in most birds. One, the mate familiarity hypothesis, suggests that older individuals are likely to have partners with whom they have bred before, which may enhance reproductive success. We found that pairs of house sparrows that bred together previously fledged more young than pairs that were newly formed. This was primarily due to newly-formed pairs with at least one yearling having fewer nesting attempts than continuing pairs. We also examined the possibility that continuing pairs were better coordinated in parental duties, but found no evidence for this in terms of amount of overlap at the nestbox or amount of time nestlings were unattended. Our results suggest the higher success of continuing pairs may be a matter of female age and quality and not due to benefits accrued by coordination with their mate.

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Familiarity between mates improves few aspects of reproductive performance in house sparrows

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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